Twitch could hold its own against some of the biggest names in cable TV

Amazon certainly thinks that Twitch is a good investment, as it just spent nearly $1 billion to buy Twitch and all of its live-game-streaming accoutrement. It turns out Twitch stacks up well against a lineup of cable networks, drawing in more viewers than HLN, CNN, E!, MSNBC, TruTV and even MTV during peak hours, The New York Times reports. Twitch’s viewership has been on the rise since 2012, topping out at nearly 800,000 primetime viewers this year. However, going by hours of content viewed per month, Twitch pales in comparison with Netflix and YouTube. Netflix is roughly eight times larger than Twitch, and Youtube is 24 times larger, NYT says.